you can take my Soul, but never my Heart (omegaverse)

Chapter 2: kokoro

Dazai never makes plans for the future. Nine months may as well be an eternity away. But when the president of the Armed Detective Agency proposes something even longer...

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The thing about recovery is that it's boring.

Dazai spends the next two days reading and re-reading the books he packed, staring out the window, or staring at the ceiling. He grows tired of sleeping, of being so stagnant, but he has enough self preservation not to leave the dorm room. (Not that there's anywhere to go.) Yosano starts him on his vitamin regimen immediately, and she's able to bring him suppressants on the morning of the second day to start. The dosage is pathetically small at only ten miligrams, but Yosano warns him that anything higher could have adverse effects on him and his pregnancy. The pain medication soothes his aches, though his nausea is persistent, and when he heats up a plate of chicken one day, he vomits at the smell alone.

(There's a plate of curry that makes him taste bile and make his throat hurt just looking at, so he buries it in the back of the fridge and ignores its existence.)

The third day, Fukuzawa calls him back.

"No one claimed the body," he says in lieu of a greeting. "Oda was cremated and given a marker at the cemetery near the central courthouse shortly after his death was reported by an anonymous tip. Most of the others found dead at the scene were given the same treatment, though it seems that the Port Mafia claimed several bodies to see them brought to their proper families. They did not claim Oda."

That's about what he expected.

Mori may be a heartless bastard, but he doesn't rule the Port Mafia with fear in the same way their previous boss had. His strength and intellect elicited respect, but it was those other acts that convinced others to shine more positive light onto his reputation. To claim the bodies of mere grunts, to retrieve them so they could have proper funerals and burials with their families, was a grace that the former boss never bothered with. The fact that he hadn't claimed Oda, though, was a warning. The man had no family, especially since the orphans were gone, and the message Mori sent by abandoning his body was only meant for one man.

It was a one-time warning to Dazai for him to keep to himself.

Anyone he dared to get close to would face some sort of unlucky end. Even as a child, before Mori even came into the picture, fate just had a way of doing that. Friends at the orphanage dying or simply disappearing turned into this. Mori never approved of his relationship with Oda from the start, and this was a stark reminder that Dazai was not the one in control. That Mori would always have the upper hand, even if Dazai could outsmart him. The strength of the Port Mafia is unmatched, and Dazai paid the price for trying to go against it.

"Was there any other request before you will consider my offer?"

Fukuzawa gave him the information he wanted. Now he knows where Oda is, and he can at least give an apology to that generic granite for dragging Oda under the riptide of Mori's plotting. Oda paid the price for getting involved with a mafia executive like him, and now...

Now, all Dazai has to show for it is an unstable pregnancy.

"No, but I don't want to make the deal over the phone. Seems pretty cold, doesn't it?"

"I never expected you to worry about friendly warmth."

"You haven't expected a lot of things about me, president."

There's a small burst of static across the line, and Dazai may have thought it to be a laugh. "You are correct. Yosano told me that you will undergo some more tests next week to ensure you're in good health. We'll meet up afterwards. Please continue to recover."